Patch up
by Tallemy
Summary: Small healing after battle with no cost. Or so Arata thought, because asking Takeru to patch him up always had its price.


Arata fell face forward on the inn bed without warning, letting his legs and arms hang on the edges. The word tired was not enough to explain his current feelings, as anger and exhaustion were both present. He must've lost his armour downstairs (or more like dropped it as soon as he stepped into the guild house), because he was only wearing his blue shirt and the black trousers. Everything else, even his sword was gone.

"I'll never _ever_ going to accept a request from that snob!" he groaned into the sheets, kicking off his boots. He'd been had, again. And this time his failure was seeping into his generally cheerful attitude tainting it with the memories of nasty remarks he got from Kaito.

Takeru poked his side with his foot in response, glancing up from the book he was reading.

"You will accept their request anyway," he chuckled quietly. "Because you can't refuse a challenge from Kaito."

"I can! I refused their request last month…" Arata murmured ruefully.

"And, accepted the same dumb request one day later because it ' _paid well_ ' according to you. You should've noticed it already that they rarely pay. Especially when Kaito is in charge."

Arata groaned again, then buried his face deeper into the blankets. There was some truth hidden in Takeru's words, he indeed loved challenges and missions what paid well because they meant that he could spend more money on useless luxuries like snacks and candies. He would've probably spent all of their money if Haruki and Sakuya didn't take over their finances the moment when Arata almost caused bankruptcy in their team. With no medic in sight, the only way to treat their injuries was to visit a clinic, what obviously took money out of their pockets.

"Mock me all you want, I only accepted this because of the reward," He looked up, before letting his head fall back with a depressed sigh.

He always used this as an excuse whenever he was fooled.

"Then that reward didn't worth it," Takeru announced simply, yet he couldn't help but wonder what kind of reward could be so tempting to pit the redhead against the labyrinth dwellers.

The next moment he closed the book and shifted next to Arata to take a look at his torn clothes. Maybe at the possible injuries he'd collected in the second stratum.

From the obvious holes in the boy's shirt, he'd presumed that his partner was stung several times, before he fell, collecting mud and scratches all over his body. And damn, Arata seemed to do everything to make his life as a medic even harder, like tending his own dimwit guild wasn't enough for him.

The young knight rushed into battle without ever taking a second glance at his enemies and it took them weeks to make him understand that their team was heavily dependent on teamwork. It was a highly dysfunctional team.

But in some way, Takeru loved their company. Haruki and Sakuya were both reliable as the leaders of the team, while Hikaru and Arata served as juggernauts, who needed to be kept on a short leash whenever they headed deeper into the labyrinth. They had a healthy rivalry going on, but while Hikaru was able to keep his cool, Arata liked to show off with his skills.

However, even when he was seriously injured Arata just couldn't shut up and seemingly used up all of his time to share everything with Takeru. He wasn't especially chirpy, but whenever he got really into telling a story there was no way of stopping him or asking him to turn around, because Takeru couldn't reach the rest of his wounds.

However this time, his cheerful attitude was almost gone.

"Oh no, that reward did worth it, if it wasn't for that liar snob," he huffed into the sheets. "Just when I finally get that Toxic Barb he says he's changed his mind! Can you believe this? Like really, Takeru, this is just low!"

"You say this like Haruki and Hikaru didn't warn you enough times. Also no one ordered you to get a toxic barb. You could've died if that scorpion paralyzes you, you know?" his voice held no emotions, but this was just the way Takeru usually scolded Arata when he did something stupid. They just couldn't be overdramatic and loud about it, and it seemed that Arata had an easier way of understanding the problems when they weren't thrown at his head.

Without any further question he reached for his bag and took out his trusty tweezer.

Now, the quest for a toxic barb explained why Arata had stingers in his shoulder. The scorpion beast always went for the neck of their prey, but probably couldn't reach the main artery or missed. Furthermore, ragged breath and his unusually tired rant could be all connected to the scorpion's venom. Mother Nature made sure, so Assassins got a terrible ability to leave their stingers in their prey, causing them paralysis and agonizing pain. The venom alone couldn't kill anything bigger than a Moa, but its side effects were terrifying if it wasn't treated in time. Fever, hallucinations, nausea tortured the prey until the Assassin's venom started acted like an everyday poison, causing the body's vital organs to start malfunctioning until the injured person passed away.

Since Arata's team lacked an all-purpose healer, or any kind of healer. If anyone got hurt, they had to bear with it until the team was back in town not knowing when would a chance like that occur. However, when Takeru was around it got better, as he could prevent these kind of tragedies.

As Arata continued his complains, the blonde took advantage of the distraction and pulled out another yellow needle through the hole the creature made on the shirt.

"Ouch!" Arata turned toward Takeru, furrowing his brow.

"You'll thank me for this," the blonde began as he pulled out another one that got stuck deep in the flesh. Of there was one thing he hated more than this, it was patching up open wounds.

"Were you stung somewhere else?" he asked, as Arata sat up on the bed. He indeed looked extremely tired.

"Nope. It used Venom only twice, but it sure hurt like hell. And then Kaito just refuses to hold his end of the deal! "

He was still hung up on that.

"Don't let him get to you," Takeru said, wiping away dried blood from Arata's cheeks. "He has his own asshole-ish ways of dealing with life. I bet he only sent in the request to catch you off guard and cause trouble again."

"Well, he did it. But that reward was too sweet to pass on it!"

"Uhum. And your reward now is to get patched up by someone from Harness," he hummed. Arata was about to open his mouth to say something, probably extremely stupid or to make a remark about this being a reward too, but Takeru cut him off. "So what was it?"

Arata's lips formed a wide smile, he looked like a kid who is about to proudly announce his mother how he collected every snail in the garden. But instead of a loud, obnoxious statement, Arata's words came out gentle, "An angel robe."

Takeru gave him a surprised look.

Angel robe. The most recommended armour for those, who specialised in the art of healing. It was not only light and thin, but also protected its wearer from most physical attacks and binds. Basically, it was the Holy Grail for medics, which required slaying a _Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens_ named Iwaopeln and obtaining ingredients from it. Since the gargantuan bird dwelled deep down in the 4th stratum getting near it was almost impossible for them yet and even then, hunting down a beast like that would require a full team. Not just some random explorers.

On the other hand, he couldn't blame Arata for falling into Kaito's trap. It was a sweet reward for a petty price.

"Whenever you come with us you always end up getting injured," Arata explained, failing to look into Takeru's eyes. "Because I lose my mind in the heat of the battle and rush forward. So, I wanted something that could protect you since I, the knight, obviously can't do that."

"Oh, I think you're doing a fine job with being my knight and all. I seriously had it worse," said Takeru. He wasn't the type who would openly complain about his own partners, but having only a survivalist and a knight put some extra weight on his shoulders. "Now take that shirt off. "

Arata's mouth opened in surprise.

"I bet there are more injuries and I don't intend to hold your hand all night if that Assassin used venom on you three times," Takeru snorted and Arata watched him take out the regular medical kit.

"But I told you it only hit twice! Why won't anyone believe me?!"

"You say this with cakes too, yet everyone knows that you will eat one more."

"Sweets and injuries are completely different," Arata complained, but when Takeru gently patted him in the back and even that tiny contact made him yelp from pain. Honestly, it was like treating a kid who refuses to admit that he hit his ankle when he fell.

"I'm obviously not the one who needs to be protected here," he said out loudly when he saw Arata's skin. Blue and red bruises everywhere, just like Arata was, compared to the two holes in his skin, the redhead was fine safe for the low hit Takeru delivered with his comment. When Arata appeared hesitant to reply, he spread salve on the bruises, silencing the pain. "So that's why next time you have to take me with you."

"Huh? But…"

Silence fell between them for a few moments. Takeru reached out to touch him, but with a sulky expression he stopped his hand mid-air, before resting his hand on Arata's shoulder. "I don't want you to die down there and the others can't be always there with you."

 _I won't die,_ he wanted to say, yet something prevented him. Even Arata realized it would be an empty promise.

"Roger," he told Takeru at last wearing an apologetically nervous smile. He flinched when the warmth disappeared from his bare shoulder.

"Alright! How about wandering around a bit to kill some time? Sell those toxic barbs at the general store, then let's eat something!"

Arata turned to him first, he didn't believe his ears. Wasn't this a bit too much change from their previous seemingly serious conversation? But his disbelief quickly faded and was replaced by a ticklish emotion when he looked at that million-dollar smile. The medic really knew how to get him back on his feet.

"To the square then!"

 **A/N: Fun fact, this was supposed to be a drabble. Now it's not. It's a goddamned EtrianAU oneshot. I tried to add in some minor informations, trying to weave the game's system into the story but I think this is all I can do for a small short story.**


End file.
